Rabbi Cohen ’72 to spend part of sabbatical studying and meeting with community at Holy Cross

Rabbi Norman M. Cohen ’72, who was the only Jew among 2,300 other students when he was enrolled at Holy Cross, will return to study, lecture, and meet with members of the College community while he is in residence on campus March 23 through April 2.

Cohen is the founding rabbi of the reform Jewish congregation Bet Shalom in Minnetonka, Minn.

While on campus, Cohen will live in Ciampi Hall, the Jesuit residence. In addition to a full schedule of events, and formal and informal meetings with students, faculty, and staff, he will meet with members of the local Jewish community. He is especially looking forward to spending time with Rabbi Seth L. Bernstein, of Worcester’s Temple Sinai, who was a classmate of Cohen’s in rabbinical school at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati.

This is the third College-sponsored visit Cohen has made back to College Hill. He spoke on campus in March of 2001, and again in September of last year. Katherine McElaney ’76, director of the College chaplains, initiated plans for this longer visit. “After I met Rabbi Cohen, I very much wanted him to come work here as a chaplain,” she said. “I saw him being the kind of person whose ministry would be very far-reaching — stretching way beyond Jewish members of the Holy Cross community.”

Cohen had a similar reaction. “When I was here in September, I kept saying to myself: ‘This is a great experience, and if only I could spend more time, I’d get a lot out of talking and working with the people at Holy Cross,’ ” he recalled. “Then when Kim McElaney asked me to consider coming back, I realized that Holy Cross would be an extraordinary environment in which to do my personal study, and work with the chaplains and with students.”

In addition to a formal schedule during his residency, Cohen will engage in his own study. “I try to take study leave every year, and this will be a perfect place in which to do that work. After all, Holy Cross is where I learned to study.” He is focusing his current personal study on the Book of Ruth.

“I vividly remember my days as a student on campus at Holy Cross,” he said. “It was a real privilege to be a student here — and I’m looking forward to being back.”

At one of his previous lectures on campus, Cohen said: “My years at Holy Cross are a time of great significance for me, leading me to my life’s work, the Rabbinate. It may seem ironic, but coming to this Jesuit environment, where the Catholic faith enhances life for so many, opened my eyes to the depth and beauty of my own Jewish heritage … It was difficult for me to take my Judaism for granted.”

While a student at Holy Cross, he was a Hiatt Scholar for a six month program in Jerusalem at the Hiatt Institute of Brandeis University.

Cohen will arrive on Friday, March 23, for Shabbat dinner with the Holy Cross community. Details of his schedule will be announced, and he is also planning to deliver a lecture on the subject of his forthcoming book exploring the stereotypes that Christians and Jews have about each other. And, he says, “I’m open to what people come up with,” including meeting with Israeli students who are living in Worcester and answering questions from prospective Holy Cross students who are Jewish.

He’ll depart on Monday, April 2. “I’ll be home in time for Passover.”

Related information:

* www.betshalom.org * Chaplains’ Office